


Irregulars

by eymberfyire (gracefulfallen)



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Forum: Goldenlake, Gen, Holiday Fic Exchange, Legends, Religion, The Riders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 07:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5908177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracefulfallen/pseuds/eymberfyire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buri is lonely in this strange new land.  At Midwinter she realizes what it is that she has missed since being driven from her home and the Hau ma.</p><p>Written for Midwinter ficcmas 2010 for PeroxidePirate.  A musing on the K'mir</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irregulars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeroxidePirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeroxidePirate/gifts).



  
“What will you do tonight?”  
  
Buri glances up from where she labors over a stacked set of papers, blackened and smudged by corrections. She scowls at the interruption, but Onua is immune to the fear of something so trivial as a hard glance.  
  
Finally, “Work, I imagine. There’s still a lot to be done between now and the spring.”  
  
Onua crosses the wooden floor - freshly sanded ash - and sits at the rough-hewn tables that will one day soon house dozens of trainees. Irregulars. The misfits and the mongrels. People who fit nowhere else will find their home here. Despite herself, Buri smiles at the thought. It is a good place for her.  
  
“Have you decided on a name for them yet?”  
  
As Onua leans into the light streaming from the window, Buri notes the scars on her face, finally fading after so many months. The bruises are gone, but her nose is still crooked, and she walks with a limp that might never go away. It reminds Buri that she is not the only one this place will be good for, and that softens her some to the annoyance of the day.  
  
“What, you didn’t take to Raoul’s suggestion?” Buri’s response is drawled, but they both know the sarcasm is good natured.  
  
Onua grins at her. “Somehow ‘The Prancing Ponies’ didn’t seem glorious enough for recruitment efforts.”  
  
They smile at each other for a moment, and then Buri looks out the window, her face blank and distant. Finally, “I was thinking of the Riders.” Her eyes are focused on the horizon visible through the eastern window, and on the things she cannot see that are further beyond it.  
  
“The Riders.” Onua’s voice is quiet.  Reverent. “And then Bian North-Wind called to her sister and brothers, her voice echoing across the peaks of the mountains. And they came to her, born on steeds of fire and lightning, their manes trailing sparks as they rode from their domains."  

Her voice gains strength as she spoke - gains the power of generations of tellings.  "They gathered around her and together rode upon the warlord, cleansing him from the earth. Then Bian turned and spoke to the clan-chiefs gathered there, and her voice was the North-Wind, frozen and magnificent. ‘We heard the cry of the People and answered. When the K’mir are desperate, call to us, for the Riders will always protect their children.’”  
  
Her voice echoes off of the inside of the new building. Silence lingers for a few unbroken moments. “It sounds like a fine name to me, _emegtei_."  She reaches a tentative hand out, and lays is on Buri’s shoulder.  
  
Buri feels it there, turns. Briefly considers standing and walking away. They hadn’t always had the easiest of relationships, each reminding the other of things best left forgotten. After a moment she relaxes. She supposes it might be good to have a friend who understands.  And she has a feeling that Onua does - perhaps even more so than a queen who has never heard the stories of her mother's clan.

She reaches a hand up and gingerly places it on top of Onua's, half expecting the other woman to jerk away.  She doesn't.  
  
They sit there in the silence, the wood dust drifting through the beams of light in the window.  
  
Finally, Onua clears her throat. “Work isn’t a good enough answer.” Her declaration is shaky, and Buri is startled from her revere.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Work.” Onua continues. “That answer isn’t good enough. This is a time to be with friends. I don’t care” she continues over Buri’s vigorous protests, “how much work you have. It’s Midwinter. You shouldn’t spend it alone. I’ll see you tonight.”  
  
She stands and is gone. Buri is left scowling at the door, and yelling, “Fine. Come if you must - I’ll just be here.” A casual wave from the limping figure is all the acknowledgement she gets. She is glad Onua is gone though - she would hate to have to explain her sudden smile.  
  
Truth told, she is happy to have the company - even if she has to hide many smiles.  There is Msenda, the large Sargent, black as birch with pink scars around his wrists. He tells them of the Dreaming - the place his people go in sleep - where they walk with Ganiel and speak to him of many things. They spend their Midwinters, he says, immersed in meditation, hoping to touch the Gods on their holiest of nights.  
  
There is George, sneaking his way in from the ball at the palace, smiling and shrugging when they ask after his escape. “Ain’t a theif got secrets left he’s aloud to have?” And he tells them of the Dancing Dove, and the wild, rollicking Midwinters there. How upon occasion, he sneaks a man named Alan down there to celebrate to this day.  
  
Finally Onua, telling of the her own life, and therefore of Buri’s The children bundled in their furs, faces red with the cold and excitement. Young men seeking flowers and switches from the highest cliffs to torment the women they fancy. And the faces of the villagers as they gather to hear the story of the Riders, and Bian’s North-Wind’s first midwinter gift, laboring three nights to give birth to the lifeblood of the clans - mountain horses. Stories that are so essential to the life of her people. Stories that chronicle and bind them - that define them as K’mir.  
  
She realizes, suddenly, that _this_ is what she has missed. She has had no clan to bond with, no births or deaths to celebrate or mourn. No one to share tales with. She thinks, perhaps, that she is finding them at last, her clan. Here. Among the misfits and the mongrels.  
  
Irregulars indeed.  She snorts to herself - but she can’t help but smile as she does so.


End file.
